Lucescu upbeat, Arrasate reflective
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Article summary
With Jagoba Arrasate reflecting on Real Sociedad de Fútbol's costly errors, Mircea Lucescu admitted FC Shakhtar Donetsk had ridden their luck to secure three vital points.
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Mircea Lucescu, Shakhtar coach
As we expected, the game was hard, especially in the first half. In the first 15 minutes they had the advantage as they totally controlled the ball. I think we surprised them with some fast and clever play after the corner that led to Luiz Adriano's goal. At the end of the first half they put lots of pressure on our defence. They had some good opportunities and I must admit we were lucky as they failed to take their chances.
The key moment was Alex Teixeira's goal, when we pressed successfully. Once it became 2-0, Real understood they wouldn't get anything here. We controlled the ball well, put together a lot of combinations, but the outcome was practically settled. Real started to play open footballl, which enabled us to utilise our counterattacks, so the last part of the game was quite simple for my players.
I wouldn't compare this game with the matches against Manchester United and Leverkusen, because in those games our opponents were using the tactics they wanted for 90 minutes, while Real Sociedad were forced to go forward. Now we have two weeks to prepare for the game at Old Trafford. We have only one option: we need to defeat Manchester United. We will do everything possible to achieve this.
Jagoba Arrasate, La Real coach
In this competition you pay for the mistakes you make. They went ahead and after the second goal it was game over. We wanted to dominate in midfield and play to our dynamic forwards. We are sad because our campaign is over. We didn't start well. We now have one match left and we have to give 100% to try and win against Leverkusen.